What things cost

Today’s my last day of R&R. I left Male Sunday night on the redeye and landed at 5 a.m., so I took today off for laundry and sleep. It’s back to work tomorrow.

Beware of monkeys

Had a really good time and I’m glad I structured it like I did, with Sri Lanka (Colombo, Kandy) first and Maafushi, Maldives last. It was kind of a quick decision based on the Istanbul-Colombo flight stopped in Male and the overnight was a nonstop back. I figured I’d get all the travel over with and chill on the beach for the rest of it and that worked out well.

I spent four days in Sri Lanka and then four in the Maldives. Not a long and extended R&R but I don’t think I could have handled one anyway. By the last day, I had island fever and was ready to get back to my own bed.

One thing I need to get used to is longer vacations. I’m really a short weekend recharger and the long stuff doesn’t sit well with me. This isn’t good news for down the road; the next gig gets me three three-week vacations and nothing else, so I need to get used to it. I’ve no idea how to do it, though.

Kandy was, by far, the Sri Lankan highlight, but that was completely because I screwed up the in-country transport and didn’t spend any time at all in Colombo.

This is why

Well, not true. I did spend time there, but not how I wanted to. I wound up in transport from around 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. the first day. And discovered there is just no consistency in pricing as far as transportation goes.

My biggest snafu was the airport to hotel on the way in. I figured I’d be in the hotel room by 5 p.m. or so. Well, I messed up.

The Colombo airport is about 35k outside Colombo, and the cheapest way to get to town is the 187 bus from the airport, which costs about a buck. That was a no-brainer and extremely easy. I made my way to the train station, and there’s where the price discrepancies come in.

People who look like me get the tourist rate. All the information I found said to take a metered taxi, and I tried, but the few I found marked “metered taxi” had drivers who flat-out refused to use it. Instead, I got quotes from 200 to 300 RP for a 5k ride. Considering the bus was 30 RP for 35k, it seemed unreasonable.

Elephant orphanage

Honestly, I don’t mind paying high prices. What bothers me is getting ripped off, so I asked the information guy at the train station how to get to my hotel. He said it was very easy and was a 10 RP train ride. I guess they use the trains like subways. I let him talk me out of just walking to the hotel, which would have been about an hour’s walk.

But here’s where I really screwed up: I asked for too much information. The guy was extremely helpful – really, everyone was helpful except the tuk-tuk drivers – and I asked him about train tickets the next day, too. As a result, I had too many numbers going through my head and, once on the train, I forgot how many stops he said before I got off.

And of course, I missed it. I realized I’d gone too far and was just going to get off at the next stop and walk back.  But it took FOREVER to get to the next stop. I figured it was probably 9-10k past where I needed to get off, and at this point, it was around 6 p.m. and daylight had faded.

So all of that for 10 RP, but then I had to get back. I found an honest tuk-tuk driver (the metered kind) and it was a legit 700 RP ride.

So you have the 10 RP train ticket compared to the 700 RP tuk-tuk ride. A 2-hour train ride the next day was 130 RP, which was, eventually, followed by an hour-long bus ride for 30 RP connected to the train site by a 400 RP tuk-tuk ride (5k) in between. The train ride back, in first class (accidental).

It makes no sense whatsoever. I understand that trains and buses can mass transport people and that cabs costs more but that’s really outrageous. And I’m sure it’s because tourists take taxis and locals go with the mass transport. Grr.

Frustrations with public transport aside, I had a great time. I spent two nights in Kandy on a hotel high up a hill. Gosh, I thought I’d walk forever trying to find that place. I liked it; the operators were nice and I’ve never stayed in a hotel with a sign warning me to lock windows to keep monkeys out.

I did the elephant orphanage and this amazing botanical garden. (A 500 RP tuk-tuk ride or a 20 RP bus ride – guess which I did?) The botanical garden was founded in 1761, and as a result there were many old and well-established trees, like a road lined with palm trees. It was about 150 acres and I wandered around it for three hours.

And I saw the monkeys there! They weren’t breaking into my hotel room; they were going through the trash cans all over the park. I gotta say, I’m a little scared of monkeys. They had packs of them, too, and I was wary of looking them in the eye. Fortunately, they tended to avoid people, so that made me feel better!

I took some pictures of them, but my phone is on its last legs and it shut off, so I didn’t get too many pictures of them or the gardens. That was sad because there were so many gorgeous flowers and unusual trees and the like. Oh, and a tree of bats. I also saw my first dead bat, completely by accident. That was nasty.

But overall, the garden was my favorite in Sri Lanka, even though the elephants were cool. I was just blown away by the garden. I mean, they had cinnamon trees. I’d never seen a cinnamon tree before.

In the Maldives, diving was my highlight. I’m still a novice but went down three times while there, plus snorkeled. Manta rays are big in the Maldives, as are sea turtles and I saw both. But that was after the snorkeling trip, which also doubled as a dolphin cruise. We were headed out to the snorkeling site and found ourselves in a pod of dolphins, so the captain pretty much took us in circles so we could see them better. I don’t have a good camera and did my best but it was just so cool to watch.

My chosen Maldive was Maafushi island, which is a ferry ride (public, 30 RP; private 375 RP) away from Male and the capital. Many islands and destination were a seaplane away, which, although I love seaplanes, I opted against for time purposes.

Walking around the island, at a slow stroll, didn’t take more than 15 minutes. The hotel guys met me at the ferry with a cart for my “luggage.” I had a backpack and tossed it on and then we walked no more than 30 yards to the hotel. I had to laugh at that.

I probably walked the length of the island three times a day, just looking at the sea in different light and at different angles. It was gorgeous, as was the beach. The sad, for the most part, was made up of tiny coral fragments and I’d sit and just sift through it to see what shapes I could find.

In a couple of cases, I found tiny, tiny complete conch shells, and, in others, found similarly sized hermit crabs.

And I decided that hermit crabs are admirable. I sat on a plot of coral for awhile and just watched the little guys. They’d get tossed up on the shore and I’d watch them compose themselves and start motoring again. Once in awhile, one would take a huge tumble down a dune (well, a bit of sand, but to a hermit crab smaller than my pinkie nail, it was a heckuva dune) and then get going again. 

Those little guys gave me a good visual of “roll with the punches.”